Overriding component attributes in a web application builder

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are examples of systems, apparatus, methods and computer program products for overriding component attributes in a web application builder. A database system maintains a multi-tenant database associated with a number of users and a number of web application components each with one or more component attributes. The system displays a user interface for the web application builder framework with a layout including a number of web application components, and processes decorator rules for rendering the components. The system also processes decorator override rules for some attributes of the components. The system displays the prepared user interface with decorator rules and overrides, and, based on a user request to access one or more attributes of the components, presents those attributes for display with the decorator override rules applied.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure as it appears in the United States Patent andTrademark Office patent file or records but otherwise reserves allcopyright rights whatsoever.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This patent document generally relates to non-relational databasesystems, and more specifically to overriding component attributes in aweb application builder.

BACKGROUND

“Cloud computing” services provide shared resources, applications, andinformation to computers and other devices upon request. In cloudcomputing environments, services can be provided by one or more serversaccessible over the Internet rather than installing software locally onin-house computer systems. As such, users having a variety of roles caninteract with cloud computing services.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve only toprovide examples of possible structures and operations for the disclosedinventive systems, apparatus, methods and computer program products foroverriding component attributes in a web application builder. Thesedrawings in no way limit any changes in form and detail that may be madeby one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope ofthe disclosed implementations.

FIG. 1 shows a system diagram of an example of a system 100 foroverriding component attributes in a web application builder, inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 2 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 200 for overridingcomponent attributes in a web application builder, performed inaccordance with some implementations

FIG. 3 shows an example of a web application builder, in accordance withsome implementations.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a utility bar with components, in accordancewith some implementations.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a web application builder with decoratorrules, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a web application component with decoratorrules and decorator override rules, in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 7A shows an example of a web application component with decoratoroverride rules applied and default values presented, in accordance withsome implementations.

FIG. 7B shows an example of a web application component with decoratoroverride rules applied and modifying attributes restricted, inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 7C shows example attribute definitions with decorator overriderules applied and modifying attributes restricted, in accordance withsome implementations.

FIG. 8A shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 10 inwhich an on-demand database service can be used in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 8B shows a block diagram of an example of some implementations ofelements of FIG. 8A and various possible interconnections between theseelements.

FIG. 9A shows a system diagram of an example of architectural componentsof an on-demand database service environment 900, in accordance withsome implementations.

FIG. 9B shows a system diagram further illustrating an example ofarchitectural components of an on-demand database service environment,in accordance with some implementations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Examples of systems, apparatus, methods and computer program productsaccording to the disclosed implementations are described in thissection. These examples are being provided solely to add context and aidin the understanding of the disclosed implementations. It will thus beapparent to one skilled in the art that implementations may be practicedwithout some or all of these specific details. In other instances,certain operations have not been described in detail to avoidunnecessarily obscuring implementations. Other applications arepossible, such that the following examples should not be taken asdefinitive or limiting either in scope or setting.

In the following detailed description, references are made to theaccompanying drawings, which form a part of the description and in whichare shown, by way of illustration, specific implementations. Althoughthese implementations are described in sufficient detail to enable oneskilled in the art to practice the disclosed implementations, it isunderstood that these examples are not limiting, such that otherimplementations may be used and changes may be made without departingfrom their spirit and scope. For example, the operations of methodsshown and described herein are not necessarily performed in the orderindicated. It should also be understood that the methods may includemore or fewer operations than are indicated. In some implementations,operations described herein as separate operations may be combined.Conversely, what may be described herein as a single operation may beimplemented in multiple operations.

Some implementations of the disclosed systems, apparatus, methods andcomputer program products are configured for overriding componentattributes in a web application builder.

Web database environments that allow web applications to be presented tousers directly within a browser or other web viewing experience are verypopular for several reasons. They allow sophisticated web applications,connected to databases such as multi-tenant databases populated withmany millions of records, to be deployed and presented to users on theirdevices effortlessly, without requiring any download or installation ofthe application locally. As such web application environments andframeworks gained in popularity, it became increasingly desirable fordevelopers and companies to be able to create their own custom webapplications and pages in such environments and frameworks. In someinstances, “application builders” became available, allowing developersand non-developers (or “admins”) to create such applications and pagesusing a set of reusable building blocks. For example, a developer may beable to drag-and-drop web application components (or “components”) suchas a chat window or a clock widget onto a development area, with theapplication builder constructing a custom web application according tothose specifications, with working chat window or clock widget as thedeveloper requested.

Typically, while non-developer admins can easily arrange web applicationcomponents on a page to create a web application, developers withprogramming knowledge design the web application components themselves.Such pages may be “flexipages” that represent a customizable screen madeup of regions of web application components. In some situations,developers may want to wrap several web application components in asingle container component. For example, a utility bar may containmultiple components that can be clicked on and expanded by a user. Inthese situations, a “decorator” or wrapper component may be used, withone or more decorator rules to specify how components are renderedwithin the decorator component (or “component wrapper”), and how theybehave in the decorator component. Non-developer admins can configurecomponent attributes, as well as any attributes exposed from thedecorator component. For example, decorator rules may add attributesspecifying what label and icon to use for a web application componentwithin a decorator component.

While this system works well for many situations, component developersmay want to override the default decorator attribute values and/orrestrict which decorator attributes can be configured by admins. Withdecorator rules, however, there is no easy way to override the rules forspecific situations or contexts. A decorator component provides rulesfor how components are rendered, and developers are unable to overridethese rules or lock them down.

By way of illustration, Acme is a company that uses a databaseenvironment called PureBuilder for designing sophisticated webexperiences for its marketing campaigns. PureBuilder has a servicecalled EZ Page Builder that allows Acme's non-developer admins to createapplications using a set of components, and Acme has done so to create aweb front for its products using some simple building blocks provided inEZ Page Builder. Acme has the ability to place several web applicationcomponents inside of a taskbar-like component at the bottom of the page,and can configure various aspects of the component attributes, as wellas the container-provided attributes specific to that container.However, some component developers may wish certain containers to rendertheir components in specific ways, and restrict how Acme can configurethe attributes, but cannot do so. Acme thus can place components incontainers on a page, but those components may not be rendered in a waytheir developers want, and Acme may be able to configure attributes ofthe components in an undesirable way.

Some of the disclosed techniques can be implemented to overridecomponent attributes in a web application builder. In someimplementations, the system maintains a multi-tenant database associatedwith a number of web applications and web application components. Thesystem prepares a user interface for the web application builder,including processing one or more decorator rules for rendering webapplication components in a decorator component. The system displays theuser interface for the web application builder. The system thenprocesses a user request to access one or more attributes of the webapplication components. The system determines one or more decoratoroverride rules associated with a subset of the one or more attributes ofthe one or more web application components. Finally, the system presentsthese attributes for display with the decorator override rules appliedto the subset of the one or more attributes.

Applying some implementations of the disclosed techniques, analternative scenario to that described above is provided. In thisalternative scenario, decorator override rules are applied for a subsetof attributes of the components that Acme is using in the container. Thedevelopers of some of the components have specified attributes to bemodified when they are placed in the taskbar component, including widthand height of the component, the title bar, size of font, and more.These changes allow the components to be displayed better in thetaskbar, with more visually pleasing layouts and easier access toimportant functions. The developers have also restricted admins fromchanging the width and height to “break” the look and feel of thecomponent within the taskbar. As such, Acme's taskbar with components ismore visually appealing, streamlined, and easier to understand and use,without the need for non-developers to change anything to specificallyfit the taskbar component.

In some but not all implementations, the disclosed methods, apparatus,systems, and computer-readable storage media may be configured ordesigned for use in a multi-tenant database environment or system.

The term “multi-tenant database system” can refer to those systems inwhich various elements of hardware and software of a database system maybe shared by one or more customers. For example, a given applicationserver may simultaneously process requests for a great number ofcustomers, and a given database table may store rows of data such asfeed items for a potentially much greater number of customers. The term“query plan” generally refers to one or more operations used to accessinformation in a database system.

FIG. 1 shows a system diagram of an example of a system 100 forproviding a dynamic page previewer for a web application builder, inaccordance with some implementations. System 100 includes a variety ofdifferent hardware and/or software components which are in communicationwith each other. In the non-limiting example of FIG. 1, system 100includes at least one enterprise server 104, at least one client system108, at least one multi-tenant database 112, and at least one componentdatabase 116.

Multi-tenant database 112 can allow for storage and retrieval of largesets of data. The multi-tenant database 112 can be a databaseimplemented in HBase or other non-relational database management system.This database can include one or more records for each of a plurality ofenterprises (also referred to as organizations, or tenants.) In someimplementations, the database can include one or more shared tables, inwhich multiple enterprises have records in the same table, and sharemany of the same standard objects and columns for their records. In someimplementations, each enterprise is associated with a tenant_id thatprovides unique identification for that particular enterprise in themulti-tenant database 112. For example, the entity Acme may have atenant_id of “123” which uniquely identifies Acme as associated with arecord or object. No other tenant within a shared table may have thesame tenant_id. In some implementations, multi-tenant database 112 maystore preview data for dynamic page previews of web applications.

Component database 116 is a database that stores a plurality of webcomponents. In some implementations, the components are for use in webapplications, web application builders, and/or web application builderframeworks. In some implementations, component database 116 may storeone or more web application components, web application buildercomponents, or both. In some implementations, component database 116stores one or more pieces of metadata relating to the web components. Insome implementations, component database 116 stores a metadata model forone or more of the web components. In some implementations, the metadatamodel is in tree structure, with the nodes of the tree consisting ofattributes or properties of the web components. In some implementations,component database 116 stores one or more attributes for each of the webcomponents. In some implementations, component database 116 storesdecorator rules and decorator override rules for specific webcomponents.

Enterprise server 104 may communicate with other components of system100. This communication may be facilitated through a combination ofnetworks and interfaces. Enterprise server 104 may handle and processdata requests from the client system 108. Likewise, enterprise server104 may return a response to client system 108 after a data request hasbeen processed. For example, enterprise server 104 may retrieve datafrom one or more databases, such as the multi-tenant database 112 or thecomponent database 116. It may combine some or all of the data fromdifferent databases, and send the processed data to client system 108.

Client system 108 may be a computing device capable of communicating viaone or more data networks with a server. Examples of client system 108include a desktop computer or portable electronic device such as asmartphone, a tablet, a laptop, a wearable device such as Google Glass®,another optical head-mounted display (OHMD) device, a smart watch, etc.Client system 108 includes at least one browser in which applicationsmay be deployed.

FIG. 2 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 200 for overridingcomponent attributes in a web application builder, performed inaccordance with some implementations. Method 200 and other methodsdescribed herein may be implemented using system 100 of FIG. 1, althoughthe implementations of such methods are not limited to system 100.

At block 210, system 100 maintains a multi-tenant database 112identifying web application components. In some implementations, themulti-tenant database 112 is shared by multiple enterprises. In someimplementations, the multiple enterprises are each users of the system100 and may be able to store and process data in the form of records.The records may be part of a shared table of the multi-tenant database112. In some implementations, the web application components areconfigured to be reusable within a web application builder, and arefurther configured to construct web applications within the webapplication builder. In some implementations, one or more pieces ofmetadata may be stored in the multi-tenant database 112 in relation tothe web application components. In some implementations, a metadatamodel may be stored for one or more of the web application components.

In some implementations, one or more web application componentattributes are stored in the multi-tenant database for 112 for each ofthe web application components. Web application component attributes(hereinafter “component attributes” or “attributes”) specify propertiesthat are associated with web application components. For example, a“title” attribute might display text for a title or heading section ofthe component, and “width” and “height” attributes might govern thespecific dimensions of the component when placed on a page.

At block 220, system 100 prepares, for display on a client device, auser interface for a web application builder. In some implementations,the user interface includes a selectable list of a subset of the webapplication components. In some implementations, the user interfaceincludes or takes the form of a “page layout” of the web application. Insome implementations, this page layout includes one or more “developmentareas”. Development areas represent a working area for the developers oradmins constructing a web application. In some implementations, adevelopment area allows for the placement of page or web applicationdesign elements, including the placement of web application components.In some implementations, the selectable list of web applicationcomponents may be a palette. A palette shows all of the available webapplication components in a palette, toolbar, list, or other form ofdisplaying the components. In some implementations, both developers andnon-developers or admins are able to drag and drop web applicationcomponents onto a development area or areas to design a functional webapplication without any need for programming component behaviors.

In some implementations, preparing the user interface includesprocessing one or more decorator rules for rendering the one or more webapplication components. In some implementations, the decorator rulesspecify how components behave or are rendered within a decoratorcomponent. In other implementations, no decorator component is necessaryfor decorator rules to specify how components behave or are rendered ona page or in a web application. Decorator components are components thatact as wrappers or containers for one or more other components, whichmay be displayed inside of the decorator component in various ways. Forexample, a utility bar may contain multiple components in minimizedform. When a user clicks on a minimized component, an un-minimizedversion of the component is displayed. In some implementations,decorator rules can specify various aspects of how components are to bedisplayed inside of a decorator component, or generally specify howcomponents are to be displayed on the page or in the web application. Insome implementations, this includes decorator rules adding one or moreattributes to web application components. For example, while a clockwidget may have various attributes relating to how date and time aredisplayed, a decorator rule for a container may add label and dimensionattributes for how the clock widget is to be displayed inside of thecontainer.

In some implementations, preparing the user interface further includesprocessing one or more decorator override rules associated with a subsetof the one or more attributes of the one or more web applicationcomponents. In some implementations, decorator override rules may bepreconfigured by developers of a component to modify the behavior ordisplay of the component in different contexts. In some implementations,decorator override rules modify one or more attributes of one or moreweb application components on a page or in a web application. In someimplementations, decorator override rules modify one or more decoratorrules governing how a specific component is displayed. In someimplementations, decorator override rules can modify originalattributes, or modify attributes that have already been modified bydecorator rules. In some implementations, decorator override rules addone or more additional attributes to a set of attributes for acomponent. In some implementations, decorator override rules restrictone or more attributes from being modifiable by a non-developer oradmin.

At block 230, system 100 displays the user interface for the webapplication builder. In some implementations, the prepared userinterface with any decorator rules applied is displayed on a clientdevice. In some implementations, the prepared user interface with anydecorator rules applied, and with any decorator override rules appliedin addition to or on top of the decorator rules, is displayed on aclient device. In some implementations, the client device is associatedwith a user with permissions for accessing and/or modifying the webapplication inside of a web application builder. In someimplementations, system 100 looks to the decorator rules, if any, forhow to render components inside of any containers on the page or in theweb application. In some implementations, system 100 looks to thedecorator rules as well as decorator override rules, if any, for how torender components inside of any containers on the page or in the webapplication. In some implementations, decorator override rules alwaysreplace any decorator rules that they are intended to override. In someimplementations, certain circumstances, such as error handling orcontextual restrictions, may prevent decorator override rules fromoverriding respective decorator rules.

At block 240, system 100 processes a user request to access one or moreattributes of the web application components. In some implementations,the user request constitutes a user input that interacts with thecomponent in some way. In some implementations, the user requestconstitutes a user input that seeks to view or modify the attributes orproperties of the component. For example, a user may right click on acomponent in the web application builder to display a contextual menu,and select a “Properties” menu option in the contextual menu, with theintent to view and/or modify the attributes related to the component.

At block 250, system 100 presents the one or more attributes for displaywith the decorator override rules applied to the subset of the one ormore attributes. In some implementations, system 100 applies decoratorrules to the subset of the one or more attributes, and then overridestheir behavior with any decorator override rules that apply. In someimplementations, if there are no decorator rules or decorator overriderules, then the attributes are presented as originally-definedattributes of the web application component. In some implementations, ifthere are decorator rules but no decorator override rules, then only thedecorator rules are applied. In some implementations, a property pane,property window, or similar section is presented within the userinterface of the web application builder, listing the attributes of thecomponents, with any modifications or additional attributes presenteddepending on the presence of decorator rules or decorator overriderules. In some implementations, text fields are presented within theproperty section, corresponding to the attributes. In someimplementations, one or more of these text fields allow user input tomodify the values therein. In some implementations, the subset ofattributes that are modified by decorator override rules may havereplaced default values. In some implementations, the subset ofattributes that are modified by decorator override rules may haverestricted text fields that prevent user input or modification of thevalues therein.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a web application builder, in accordance withsome implementations. Example screenshot 300 shows a web applicationbuilder with a palette 310, canvas 320, and properties 330. In someimplementations, the web application builder is presented to a user as auser interface that can be interacted with to construct webapplications.

The palette 310 is a selectable list of one or more web applicationcomponents that can be used and reused to construct web applications.For example, one of the web application components is “Rich Text”, whichplaces a rich text field within the web application. Another componentis “Chatter”, which places a social media component within the webapplication that can function such that the user can post to a socialmedia service and perform other functions. In some implementations, theweb application components can be presented as, or alongside, graphicalrepresentations indicating an object type or component type of the webapplication component. In some implementations, the web applicationcomponents may be standard components, provided by default to users, orcustom components that were created by or specifically for the user ofthe web application builder for use in building web applications.

The canvas 320 is an area where a user of the web application buildercan design and lay out web applications or pages in a visual way. Insome implementations, the user can drag one or more selectablecomponents from the palette 310 into the canvas 320 to place them on thecanvas. In some implementations, indications appear in areas of thecanvas 320 where components may be placed.

The properties 330 is an area of the web application builder where usersmay view and modify one or more properties or attributes of a webapplication component or an object, either in the canvas 320, palette310, or some other area of the web application builder. In someimplementations, fields such as “Label”, “Developer Name”, “Page Type”,and more may designate the corresponding property or attribute, and oneor more text fields of drop-down boxes may allow a user to modifyattributes or properties. Various interactive elements, includingbuttons, may also appear to allow the user to view and/or modifyproperties of various aspects of web application components and objects.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a utility bar component with decorator rules,in accordance with some implementations. In some implementations, theutility bar component is displayed within a user interface of a webapplication builder, preview page, or similar. In some implementations,the utility bar component is displayed within a web application or webpage. Display area 410 is a display section of a web page, webapplication, preview page, or web application builder. In someimplementations, the display area 410 is part of a decorator component,such as a utility bar component.

The utility bar 420 is displayed on the screen, with one or morecomponents (here, designated “1”, “2”, and “3”). In someimplementations, the components are in minimized form, meaning they arerepresented in a smaller set of dimensions, and may be represented as anicon or title rather than depicting the visual contents of the fullcomponent. In some implementations, a “decorator” (also known as a“wrapper” or “component wrapper”) is applied to each component insidethe utility bar 420. Each page type, or utility bar in this example,specifies the name of the component within the wrapper to use. Thewrapper is then applied around each individual component in the utilitybar 420. The utility bar 420 is the container, and the wrapper isapplied to each component as it is rendered in that container.

In some implementations, one or more decorator rules apply to thedecorator component or components, in this instance one or more of thecomponents of the utility bar 420. For example, each component 1, 2, and3 can be configured with different height and width dimensions. In someimplementations, the wrapper provides metadata information that can beconfigured. The decorator rules can modify one or more pieces ofmetadata information of the components 1, 2, and 3. For example, thedecorator rules for the utility bar component 420 may specify the heightand width dimensions of each component as represented within the utilitybar, both in minimized form and in un-minimized form. Decorator rulesmay also specify that when one of the components inside the utility baris clicked on, the full wrapped component is displayed in the displayarea 410, as shown in the component 1 display area 430. In someimplementations, additional decorator rules specify that the componentmay be hidden or minimized by clicking on a “close” button, a wrapperheader, or similar section.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a web application builder with decoratorrules, in accordance with some implementations. A page layout for a userinterface of a web application builder is presented on a client device.In some implementations, palette 510 presents one or more webapplication components in a list, and a user can select one or more ofthe components for inclusion in the display area 530 or the utility barregion 540. For example, a user can click on Component 1 520 from thepalette editor, and drag and drop it onto the utility bar region 540 forinclusion as a component within the utility bar. The display area 530 isa console “flexipage” in this example, meaning it allows for webapplication components to be dropped, reused, and configured within adisplay space for inclusion in web applications with no additionalprogramming needed by an admin.

A property pane 550 for a component, in this example Component 1, isdisplayed to the right of the display area 530. In some implementations,this property pane 550 is combined with a decorator property pane 560.In some implementations, these panes can be presented when a user clickson a component property option in a menu, for example. Property pane 550presents one or more attributes as originally defined for a component.In some implementations, the attributes may be presented as oraccompanied with text field or other means of user input to accessand/or modify values. Decorator property pane 560, labeled “windowingproperties”, presents attributes defined by the decorator componentmetadata. In some implementations, the attributes are not defined by thecomponent itself, but rather are always applied for all components addedto the utility bar. In some implementations, one or more additionalattributes may be presented that were defined within decorator rules, ordefined within decorator override rules. In some implementations, one ormore of the attributes in the property pane 550 have been restricted or“greyed out” such that a user cannot input any modifications to thevalues of the attributes.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a web application component with decoratorrules and decorator override rules, in accordance with someimplementations. In this example, a decorator component 610 is presentedwith three decorator rules for any components that are placed within thedecorator component 610. These three decorator rules modify or addattributes Attr1, Attr2, and Attr3. Attr1 is modified or added to have adefault value of ‘abc’.

A component 620, named ‘cmp1’, is presented as placed within thedecorator component 610. The component includes an attribute 630, AttrX,that isn't modified by any of the decorator rules. The component alsoincludes a decorator override rule 640, stipulating: “In context Y, setdecorator Attr1 value=‘def’”. This decorator override rule 640stipulates, in this example, that when the component ‘cmp1’ is placedwithin the decorator component 610, then the decorator-modifiedattribute Attr1 should be overridden such that the value should bereplaced with ‘def’. In this example, then, Attr1's default value ‘abc’would be overridden to be ‘def’ for the component 620 placed within thedecorator component 610. In addition, a decorator override rule 650stipulates: “In context Y, set decorator Attr2 value=‘xyz’ andreadonly=‘true’”. In this example, this decorator override rule 650stipulates that when the component ‘cmp1’ is placed within the decoratorcomponent 610, the decorator-modified attribute Attr2 should have avalue set to ‘xyz’ and should be modified to be a restricted, read-onlyvalue that cannot be modified or configured by a user.

FIG. 7A, FIG. 7B, and FIG. 7C show various examples of how decoratoroverride rules can apply in a web application builder. FIG. 7A shows anexample of a web application component with decorator override rulesapplied and default values presented, in accordance with someimplementations. A Phone component 710 is presented with a property panedisplayed. Attributes 712, 714, 716, and 718 are presented within theproperty pane, representing Label, Icon, Panel Width, and Panel Heightproperties of the Phone component 710, respectively. In this example,the Phone component 710 has been placed inside of a Utility Bardecorator component, and the properties are specifically Utility Baritem properties that have been set by decorator rules. In this instance,no default values have been set by the decorator rules. The Phonecomponent has decorator override rules set for it, however, which modifythe attributes to include default values of “Phone”, “call”, “340”, and“480” for the attributes 712, 714, 716, and 718, respectively.

FIG. 7B shows an example of a web application component with decoratoroverride rules applied and modifying attributes restricted, inaccordance with some implementations. FIG. 7B shows a Notes component720 with a property pane displayed. Attributes 722, 724, 726, and 728are presented within the property pane, representing Label, Icon, PanelWidth, and Panel Height, respectively. In this example, the Notescomponent 720 has been placed inside of a Utility Bar decoratorcomponent, and the properties are specifically Utility Bar itemproperties that have been set by decorator rules. In this instance, allof the Utility Bar item properties have been presented as “greyed out”,or restricted, meaning the user is unable to enter user input within thetext fields for attributes 722, 724, 726, and 728. Instead, decoratoroverride rules for the Notes component 720 have been set to presentdefault values for these attributes, along with a stipulation that theyare read-only values that are not editable by the user.

FIG. 7C shows example attribute definitions with decorator overriderules applied and modifying attributes restricted, in accordance withsome implementations. Specifically, FIG. 7C shows the decorator overriderules of FIG. 7B in markup, code, or other definitional form 730. Inthis form, the Notes component 720 is defined with several attributesdefined as well. These attributes include the Label, Icon, Panel Width,and Panel Height attributes as presented in the property pane of FIG.7B. The decorator override rules stipulate that the name of the Labelattribute 722 should be “label”, the value should be “Notes”, and thevalue should not be editable by a user. The other attributes havesimilar stipulations. In addition, an Eager attribute is defined to loadthe web application in the background when the web application opens.The Eager attribute is invisible to an admin user attempting toconfigure the component in a web application builder.

Systems, apparatus, and methods are described below for implementingdatabase systems and enterprise level social and business informationnetworking systems in conjunction with the disclosed techniques. Suchimplementations can provide more efficient use of a database system. Forinstance, a user of a database system may not easily know when importantinformation in the database has changed, e.g., about a project orclient. Such implementations can provide feed tracked updates about suchchanges and other events, thereby keeping users informed.

By way of example, a user can update a record in the form of a CRMrecord, e.g., an opportunity such as a possible sale of 1000 computers.Once the record update has been made, a feed tracked update about therecord update can then automatically be provided, e.g., in a feed, toanyone subscribing to the opportunity or to the user. Thus, the userdoes not need to contact a manager regarding the change in theopportunity, since the feed tracked update about the update is sent viaa feed to the manager's feed page or other page.

FIG. 8A shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 10 inwhich an on-demand database service exists and can be used in accordancewith some implementations. Environment 10 may include user systems 12,network 14, database system 16, processor system 17, applicationplatform 18, network interface 20, tenant data storage 22, system datastorage 24, program code 26, and process space 28. In otherimplementations, environment 10 may not have all of these componentsand/or may have other components instead of, or in addition to, thoselisted above.

A user system 12 may be implemented as any computing device(s) or otherdata processing apparatus such as a machine or system used by a user toaccess a database system 16. For example, any of user systems 12 can bea handheld and/or portable computing device such as a mobile phone, asmartphone, a laptop computer, or a tablet. Other examples of a usersystem include computing devices such as a work station and/or a networkof computing devices. As illustrated in FIG. 8A (and in more detail inFIG. 8B) user systems 12 might interact via a network 14 with anon-demand database service, which is implemented in the example of FIG.8A as database system 16.

An on-demand database service, implemented using system 16 by way ofexample, is a service that is made available to users who do not need tonecessarily be concerned with building and/or maintaining the databasesystem. Instead, the database system may be available for their use whenthe users need the database system, i.e., on the demand of the users.Some on-demand database services may store information from one or moretenants into tables of a common database image to form a multi-tenantdatabase system (MTS). A database image may include one or more databaseobjects. A relational database management system (RDBMS) or theequivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information against thedatabase object(s). A non-relational database management system (NRDBMS)or the equivalent may execute storage and fast retrieval of large setsof information against the database object(s). Application platform 18may be a framework that allows the applications of system 16 to run,such as the hardware and/or software, e.g., the operating system. Insome implementations, application platform 18 enables creation, managingand executing one or more applications developed by the provider of theon-demand database service, users accessing the on-demand databaseservice via user systems 12, or third party application developersaccessing the on-demand database service via user systems 12.

The users of user systems 12 may differ in their respective capacities,and the capacity of a particular user system 12 might be entirelydetermined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. Forexample, when a salesperson is using a particular user system 12 tointeract with system 16, the user system has the capacities allotted tothat salesperson. However, while an administrator is using that usersystem to interact with system 16, that user system has the capacitiesallotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical rolemodel, users at one permission level may have access to applications,data, and database information accessible by a lower permission leveluser, but may not have access to certain applications, databaseinformation, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level.Thus, different users will have different capabilities with regard toaccessing and modifying application and database information, dependingon a user's security or permission level, also called authorization.

Network 14 is any network or combination of networks of devices thatcommunicate with one another. For example, network 14 can be any one orany combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network),telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, starnetwork, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. Network 14 can include a TCP/IP (Transfer ControlProtocol and Internet Protocol) network, such as the global internetworkof networks often referred to as the Internet. The Internet will be usedin many of the examples herein. However, it should be understood thatthe networks that the present implementations might use are not solimited.

User systems 12 might communicate with system 16 using TCP/IP and, at ahigher network level, use other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, user system 12 might include an HTTP client commonly referredto as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP signals to and from anHTTP server at system 16. Such an HTTP server might be implemented asthe sole network interface 20 between system 16 and network 14, butother techniques might be used as well or instead. In someimplementations, the network interface 20 between system 16 and network14 includes load sharing functionality, such as round-robin HTTP requestdistributors to balance loads and distribute incoming HTTP requestsevenly over a plurality of servers. At least for users accessing system16, each of the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data;however, other alternative configurations may be used instead.

In one implementation, system 16, shown in FIG. 8A, implements aweb-based CRM system. For example, in one implementation, system 16includes application servers configured to implement and execute CRMsoftware applications as well as provide related data, code, forms, webpages and other information to and from user systems 12 and to store to,and retrieve from, a database system related data, objects, and Webpagecontent. With a multi-tenant system, data for multiple tenants may bestored in the same physical database object in tenant data storage 22,however, tenant data typically is arranged in the storage medium(s) oftenant data storage 22 so that data of one tenant is kept logicallyseparate from that of other tenants so that one tenant does not haveaccess to another tenant's data, unless such data is expressly shared.In certain implementations, system 16 implements applications otherthan, or in addition to, a CRM application. For example, system 16 mayprovide tenant access to multiple hosted (standard and custom)applications, including a CRM application. User (or third partydeveloper) applications, which may or may not include CRM, may besupported by the application platform 18, which manages creation,storage of the applications into one or more database objects andexecuting of the applications in a virtual machine in the process spaceof the system 16.

One arrangement for elements of system 16 is shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B,including a network interface 20, application platform 18, tenant datastorage 22 for tenant data 23, system data storage 24 for system data 25accessible to system 16 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 26for implementing various functions of system 16, and a process space 28for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes, suchas running applications as part of an application hosting service.Additional processes that may execute on system 16 include databaseindexing processes.

Several elements in the system shown in FIG. 8A include conventional,well-known elements that are explained only briefly here. For example,each user system 12 could include a desktop personal computer,workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol(WAP) enabled device or any other computing device capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other networkconnection. The term “computing device” is also referred to hereinsimply as a “computer”. User system 12 typically runs an HTTP client,e.g., a browsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser,Netscape's Navigator browser, Opera's browser, or a WAP-enabled browserin the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like,allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system)of user system 12 to access, process and view information, pages andapplications available to it from system 16 over network 14. Each usersystem 12 also typically includes one or more user input devices, suchas a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touch screen, pen or thelike, for interacting with a GUI provided by the browser on a display(e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, OLED display, etc.) of thecomputing device in conjunction with pages, forms, applications andother information provided by system 16 or other systems or servers.Thus, “display device” as used herein can refer to a display of acomputer system such as a monitor or touch-screen display, and can referto any computing device having display capabilities such as a desktopcomputer, laptop, tablet, smartphone, a television set-top box, orwearable device such Google Glass® or other human body-mounted displayapparatus. For example, the display device can be used to access dataand applications hosted by system 16, and to perform searches on storeddata, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages thatmay be presented to a user. As discussed above, implementations aresuitable for use with the Internet, although other networks can be usedinstead of or in addition to the Internet, such as an intranet, anextranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network,any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to one implementation, each user system 12 and all of itscomponents are operator configurable using applications, such as abrowser, including computer code run using a central processing unitsuch as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system 16(and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) andall of its components might be operator configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using processor system 17,which may be implemented to include a central processing unit, which mayinclude an Intel Pentium® processor or the like, and/or multipleprocessor units. Non-transitory computer-readable media can haveinstructions stored thereon/in, that can be executed by or used toprogram a computing device to perform any of the methods of theimplementations described herein. Computer program code 26 implementinginstructions for operating and configuring system 16 to intercommunicateand to process web pages, applications and other data and media contentas described herein is preferably downloadable and stored on a harddisk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof, may also bestored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory medium or device asis well known, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on any media capable ofstoring program code, such as any type of rotating media includingfloppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk (DVD), compact disk(CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or opticalcards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any other typeof computer-readable medium or device suitable for storing instructionsand/or data. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof,may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over atransmission medium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, asis well known, or transmitted over any other conventional networkconnection as is well known (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using anycommunication medium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet,etc.) as are well known. It will also be appreciated that computer codefor the disclosed implementations can be realized in any programminglanguage that can be executed on a client system and/or server or serversystem such as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language,Java™, JavaScript, ActiveX, any other scripting language, such asVBScript, and many other programming languages as are well known may beused. (Java™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).

According to some implementations, each system 16 is configured toprovide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user(client) systems 12 to support the access by user systems 12 as tenantsof system 16. As such, system 16 provides security mechanisms to keepeach tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than oneMTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another(e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or theymay be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one ormore servers located in city A and one or more servers located in cityB). As used herein, each MTS could include one or more logically and/orphysically connected servers distributed locally or across one or moregeographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant to referto one type of computing device such as a system including processinghardware and process space(s), an associated storage medium such as amemory device or database, and, in some instances, a databaseapplication (e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art. Itshould also be understood that “server system” and “server” are oftenused interchangeably herein. Similarly, the database objects describedherein can be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, acollection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online oroffline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include adistributed database or storage network and associated processingintelligence.

FIG. 8B shows a block diagram of an example of some implementations ofelements of FIG. 8A and various possible interconnections between theseelements. That is, FIG. 8B also illustrates environment 10. However, inFIG. 8B elements of system 16 and various interconnections in someimplementations are further illustrated. FIG. 8B shows that user system12 may include processor system 9A, memory system 9B, input system 12C,and output system 12D. FIG. 8B shows network 14 and system 16. FIG. 8Balso shows that system 16 may include tenant data storage 22, tenantdata 23, system data storage 24, system data 25, User Interface (UI) 30,Application Program Interface (API) 32, PL/SOQL 34, save routines 36,application setup mechanism 38, application servers 50 ₁-50 _(N), systemprocess space 52, tenant process spaces 54, tenant management processspace 60, tenant storage space 62, user storage 64, and applicationmetadata 66. In other implementations, environment 10 may not have thesame elements as those listed above and/or may have other elementsinstead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

User system 12, network 14, system 16, tenant data storage 22, andsystem data storage 24 were discussed above in FIG. 8A. Regarding usersystem 12, processor system 9A may be any combination of one or moreprocessors. Memory system 9B may be any combination of one or morememory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system 12Cmay be any combination of input devices, such as one or more keyboards,mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks.Output system 12D may be any combination of output devices, such as oneor more monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown byFIG. 8B, system 16 may include a network interface 20 (of FIG. 8A)implemented as a set of application servers 50, an application platform18, tenant data storage 22, and system data storage 24. Also shown issystem process space 52, including individual tenant process spaces 54and a tenant management process space 60. Each application server 50 maybe configured to communicate with tenant data storage 22 and the tenantdata 23 therein, and system data storage 24 and the system data 25therein to serve requests of user systems 12. The tenant data 23 mightbe divided into individual tenant storage spaces 62, which can be eithera physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within eachtenant storage space 62, user storage 64 and application metadata 66might be similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of auser's most recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage64. Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is atenant might be stored to tenant storage space 62. A UI 30 provides auser interface and an API 32 provides an application programmerinterface to system 16 resident processes to users and/or developers atuser systems 12. The tenant data and the system data may be stored invarious databases, such as one or more Oracle® databases.

Application platform 18 includes an application setup mechanism 38 thatsupports application developers' creation and management ofapplications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage 22by save routines 36 for execution by subscribers as one or more tenantprocess spaces 54 managed by tenant management process 60 for example.Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 34 thatprovides a programming language style interface extension to API 32. Adetailed description of some PL/SOQL language implementations isdiscussed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478, titled METHODAND SYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA AMULTI-TENANT ON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, issued onJun. 1, 2010, and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety andfor all purposes. Invocations to applications may be detected by one ormore system processes, which manage retrieving application metadata 66for the subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata asan application in a virtual machine.

Each application server 50 may be communicably coupled to databasesystems, e.g., having access to system data 25 and tenant data 23, via adifferent network connection. For example, one application server 50 ₁might be coupled via the network 14 (e.g., the Internet), anotherapplication server 50 _(N-1) might be coupled via a direct network link,and another application server 50 _(N) might be coupled by yet adifferent network connection. Transfer Control Protocol and InternetProtocol (TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating betweenapplication servers 50 and the database system. However, it will beapparent to one skilled in the art that other transport protocols may beused to optimize the system depending on the network interconnect used.

In certain implementations, each application server 50 is configured tohandle requests for any user associated with any organization that is atenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove applicationservers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there ispreferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to aspecific application server 50. In one implementation, therefore, aninterface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the applicationservers 50 and the user systems 12 to distribute requests to theapplication servers 50. In one implementation, the load balancer uses aleast connections algorithm to route user requests to the applicationservers 50. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as roundrobin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, incertain implementations, three consecutive requests from the same usercould hit three different application servers 50, and three requestsfrom different users could hit the same application server 50. In thismanner, by way of example, system 16 is multi-tenant, wherein system 16handles storage of, and access to, different objects, data andapplications across disparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs asales force where each salesperson uses system 16 to manage their salesprocess. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customerfollow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., allapplicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., in tenant datastorage 22). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the dataand the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit,calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system havingnothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her salesefforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example,if a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has Internetaccess in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical updates as tothat customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data might beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users orall of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, theremight be some data structures managed by system 16 that are allocated atthe tenant level while other data structures might be managed at theuser level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants includingpossible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keepdata, applications, and application use separate. Also, because manytenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their ownsystem, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions thatmay be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data andtenant-specific data, system 16 might also maintain system level datausable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data mightinclude industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharableamong tenants.

In certain implementations, user systems 12 (which may be clientsystems) communicate with application servers 50 to request and updatesystem-level and tenant-level data from system 16 that may involvesending one or more queries to tenant data storage 22 and/or system datastorage 24. System 16 (e.g., an application server 50 in system 16)automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., one or moreSQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information. Systemdata storage 24 may generate query plans to access the requested datafrom the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefinedcategories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may beused herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and customobjects according to some implementations. It should be understood that“table” and “object” may be used interchangeably herein. Each tablegenerally contains one or more data categories logically arranged ascolumns or fields in a viewable schema. Each row or record of a tablecontains an instance of data for each category defined by the fields.For example, a CRM database may include a table that describes acustomer with fields for basic contact information such as name,address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table might describe apurchase order, including fields for information such as customer,product, sale price, date, etc. In some multi-tenant database systems,standard entity tables might be provided for use by all tenants. For CRMdatabase applications, such standard entities might include tables forcase, account, contact, lead, and opportunity data objects, eachcontaining pre-defined fields. It should be understood that the word“entity” may also be used interchangeably herein with “object” and“table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to createand store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standardentities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standardobjects, including custom index fields. Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No.7,779,039, titled CUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELDS IN A MULTI-TENANT DATABASESYSTEM, by Weissman et al., issued on Aug. 17, 2010, and herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes, teachessystems and methods for creating custom objects as well as customizingstandard objects in a multi-tenant database system. In certainimplementations, for example, all custom entity data rows are stored ina single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiple logicaltables per organization. It is transparent to customers that theirmultiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table or that theirdata may be stored in the same table as the data of other customers.

FIG. 9A shows a system diagram of an example of architectural componentsof an on-demand database service environment 900, in accordance withsome implementations. A client machine located in the cloud 904,generally referring to one or more networks in combination, as describedherein, may communicate with the on-demand database service environmentvia one or more edge routers 908 and 912. A client machine can be any ofthe examples of user systems 12 described above. The edge routers maycommunicate with one or more core switches 920 and 924 via firewall 916.The core switches may communicate with a load balancer 928, which maydistribute server load over different pods, such as the pods 940 and944. The pods 940 and 944, which may each include one or more serversand/or other computing resources, may perform data processing and otheroperations used to provide on-demand services. Communication with thepods may be conducted via pod switches 932 and 936. Components of theon-demand database service environment may communicate with a databasestorage 956 via a database firewall 948 and a database switch 952.

As shown in FIGS. 9A and 9B, accessing an on-demand database serviceenvironment may involve communications transmitted among a variety ofdifferent hardware and/or software components. Further, the on-demanddatabase service environment 900 is a simplified representation of anactual on-demand database service environment. For example, while onlyone or two devices of each type are shown in FIGS. 9A and 9B, someimplementations of an on-demand database service environment may includeanywhere from one to many devices of each type. Also, the on-demanddatabase service environment need not include each device shown in FIGS.9A and 9B, or may include additional devices not shown in FIGS. 9A and9B.

Moreover, one or more of the devices in the on-demand database serviceenvironment 900 may be implemented on the same physical device or ondifferent hardware. Some devices may be implemented using hardware or acombination of hardware and software. Thus, terms such as “dataprocessing apparatus,” “machine,” “server” and “device” as used hereinare not limited to a single hardware device, but rather include anyhardware and software configured to provide the described functionality.

The cloud 904 is intended to refer to a data network or combination ofdata networks, often including the Internet. Client machines located inthe cloud 904 may communicate with the on-demand database serviceenvironment to access services provided by the on-demand databaseservice environment. For example, client machines may access theon-demand database service environment to retrieve, store, edit, and/orprocess information.

In some implementations, the edge routers 908 and 912 route packetsbetween the cloud 904 and other components of the on-demand databaseservice environment 900. The edge routers 908 and 912 may employ theBorder Gateway Protocol (BGP). The BGP is the core routing protocol ofthe Internet. The edge routers 908 and 912 may maintain a table of IPnetworks or ‘prefixes’, which designate network reachability amongautonomous systems on the Internet.

In one or more implementations, the firewall 916 may protect the innercomponents of the on-demand database service environment 900 fromInternet traffic. The firewall 916 may block, permit, or deny access tothe inner components of the on-demand database service environment 900based upon a set of rules and other criteria. The firewall 916 may actas one or more of a packet filter, an application gateway, a statefulfilter, a proxy server, or any other type of firewall.

In some implementations, the core switches 920 and 924 are high-capacityswitches that transfer packets within the on-demand database serviceenvironment 900. The core switches 920 and 924 may be configured asnetwork bridges that quickly route data between different componentswithin the on-demand database service environment. In someimplementations, the use of two or more core switches 920 and 924 mayprovide redundancy and/or reduced latency.

In some implementations, the pods 940 and 944 may perform the core dataprocessing and service functions provided by the on-demand databaseservice environment. Each pod may include various types of hardwareand/or software computing resources. An example of the pod architectureis discussed in greater detail with reference to FIG. 9B.

In some implementations, communication between the pods 940 and 944 maybe conducted via the pod switches 932 and 936. The pod switches 932 and936 may facilitate communication between the pods 940 and 944 and clientmachines located in the cloud 904, for example via core switches 920 and924. Also, the pod switches 932 and 936 may facilitate communicationbetween the pods 940 and 944 and the database storage 956.

In some implementations, the load balancer 928 may distribute workloadbetween the pods 940 and 944. Balancing the on-demand service requestsbetween the pods may assist in improving the use of resources,increasing throughput, reducing response times, and/or reducingoverhead. The load balancer 928 may include multilayer switches toanalyze and forward traffic.

In some implementations, access to the database storage 956 may beguarded by a database firewall 948. The database firewall 948 may act asa computer application firewall operating at the database applicationlayer of a protocol stack. The database firewall 948 may protect thedatabase storage 956 from application attacks such as structure querylanguage (SQL) injection, database rootkits, and unauthorizedinformation disclosure.

In some implementations, the database firewall 948 may include a hostusing one or more forms of reverse proxy services to proxy trafficbefore passing it to a gateway router. The database firewall 948 mayinspect the contents of database traffic and block certain content ordatabase requests. The database firewall 948 may work on the SQLapplication level atop the TCP/IP stack, managing applications'connection to the database or SQL management interfaces as well asintercepting and enforcing packets traveling to or from a databasenetwork or application interface.

In some implementations, communication with the database storage 956 maybe conducted via the database switch 952. The multi-tenant databasestorage 956 may include more than one hardware and/or softwarecomponents for handling database queries. Accordingly, the databaseswitch 952 may direct database queries transmitted by other componentsof the on-demand database service environment (e.g., the pods 940 and944) to the correct components within the database storage 956.

In some implementations, the database storage 956 is an on-demanddatabase system shared by many different organizations. The on-demanddatabase service may employ a multi-tenant approach, a virtualizedapproach, or any other type of database approach. On-demand databaseservices are discussed in greater detail with reference to FIGS. 9A and9B.

FIG. 9B shows a system diagram further illustrating an example ofarchitectural components of an on-demand database service environment,in accordance with some implementations. The pod 944 may be used torender services to a user of the on-demand database service environment900. In some implementations, each pod may include a variety of serversand/or other systems. The pod 944 includes one or more content batchservers 964, content search servers 968, query servers 982, file servers986, access control system (ACS) servers 980, batch servers 984, and appservers 988. Also, the pod 944 includes database instances 990, quickfile systems (QFS) 992, and indexers 994. In one or moreimplementations, some or all communication between the servers in thepod 944 may be transmitted via the switch 936.

The content batch servers 964 may handle requests internal to the pod.These requests may be long-running and/or not tied to a particularcustomer. For example, the content batch servers 964 may handle requestsrelated to log mining, cleanup work, and maintenance tasks.

The content search servers 968 may provide query and indexer functions.For example, the functions provided by the content search servers 968may allow users to search through content stored in the on-demanddatabase service environment.

The file servers 986 may manage requests for information stored in thefile storage 998. The file storage 998 may store information such asdocuments, images, and basic large objects (BLOBs). By managing requestsfor information using the file servers 986, the image footprint on thedatabase may be reduced.

The query servers 982 may be used to retrieve information from one ormore file systems. For example, the query system 982 may receiverequests for information from the app servers 988 and then transmitinformation queries to the NFS 996 located outside the pod.

The pod 944 may share a database instance 990 configured as amulti-tenant environment in which different organizations share accessto the same database. Additionally, services rendered by the pod 944 maycall upon various hardware and/or software resources. In someimplementations, the ACS servers 980 may control access to data,hardware resources, or software resources.

In some implementations, the batch servers 984 may process batch jobs,which are used to run tasks at specified times. Thus, the batch servers984 may transmit instructions to other servers, such as the app servers988, to trigger the batch jobs.

In some implementations, the QFS 992 may be an open source file systemavailable from Sun Microsystems® of Santa Clara, Calif. The QFS mayserve as a rapid-access file system for storing and accessinginformation available within the pod 944. The QFS 992 may support somevolume management capabilities, allowing many disks to be groupedtogether into a file system. File system metadata can be kept on aseparate set of disks, which may be useful for streaming applicationswhere long disk seeks cannot be tolerated. Thus, the QFS system maycommunicate with one or more content search servers 968 and/or indexers994 to identify, retrieve, move, and/or update data stored in thenetwork file systems 996 and/or other storage systems.

In some implementations, one or more query servers 982 may communicatewith the NFS 996 to retrieve and/or update information stored outside ofthe pod 944. The NFS 996 may allow servers located in the pod 944 toaccess information to access files over a network in a manner similar tohow local storage is accessed.

In some implementations, queries from the query servers 922 may betransmitted to the NFS 996 via the load balancer 928, which maydistribute resource requests over various resources available in theon-demand database service environment. The NFS 996 may also communicatewith the QFS 992 to update the information stored on the NFS 996 and/orto provide information to the QFS 992 for use by servers located withinthe pod 944.

In some implementations, the pod may include one or more databaseinstances 990. The database instance 990 may transmit information to theQFS 992. When information is transmitted to the QFS, it may be availablefor use by servers within the pod 944 without using an additionaldatabase call.

In some implementations, database information may be transmitted to theindexer 994. Indexer 994 may provide an index of information availablein the database 990 and/or QFS 992. The index information may beprovided to file servers 986 and/or the QFS 992.

Some but not all of the techniques described or referenced herein areimplemented as part of or in conjunction with a social networkingdatabase system, also referred to herein as a social networking systemor as a social network. Social networking systems have become a popularway to facilitate communication among people, any of whom can berecognized as users of a social networking system. One example of asocial networking system is Chatter®, provided by salesforce.com, inc.of San Francisco, Calif. salesforce.com, inc. is a provider of socialnetworking services, CRM services and other database managementservices, any of which can be accessed and used in conjunction with thetechniques disclosed herein in some implementations. These variousservices can be provided in a cloud computing environment, for example,in the context of a multi-tenant database system. Thus, the disclosedtechniques can be implemented without having to install softwarelocally, that is, on computing devices of users interacting withservices available through the cloud. While the disclosedimplementations are often described with reference to Chatter®, thoseskilled in the art should understand that the disclosed techniques areneither limited to Chatter® nor to any other services and systemsprovided by salesforce.com, inc. and can be implemented in the contextof various other database systems and/or social networking systems suchas Facebook®, LinkedIn®, Twitter®, Google+®, Yammer® and Jive® by way ofexample only.

Some social networking systems can be implemented in various settings,including organizations. For instance, a social networking system can beimplemented to connect users within an enterprise such as a company orbusiness partnership, or a group of users within such an organization.For instance, Chatter® can be used by employee users in a division of abusiness organization to share data, communicate, and collaborate witheach other for various social purposes often involving the business ofthe organization. In the example of a multi-tenant database system, eachorganization or group within the organization can be a respective tenantof the system, as described in greater detail herein.

In some social networking systems, users can access one or more socialnetwork feeds, which include information updates presented as items orentries in the feed. Such a feed item can include a single informationupdate or a collection of individual information updates. A feed itemcan include various types of data including character-based data, audiodata, image data and/or video data. A social network feed can bedisplayed in a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display device suchas the display of a computing device as described herein. Theinformation updates can include various social network data from varioussources and can be stored in an on-demand database service environment.In some implementations, the disclosed methods, apparatus, systems, andcomputer-readable storage media may be configured or designed for use ina multi-tenant database environment.

In some implementations, a social networking system may allow a user tofollow data objects in the form of CRM records such as cases, accounts,or opportunities, in addition to following individual users and groupsof users. The “following” of a record stored in a database, as describedin greater detail herein, allows a user to track the progress of thatrecord when the user is subscribed to the record. Updates to the record,also referred to herein as changes to the record, are one type ofinformation update that can occur and be noted on a social network feedsuch as a record feed or a news feed of a user subscribed to the record.Examples of record updates include field changes in the record, updatesto the status of a record, as well as the creation of the record itself.Some records are publicly accessible, such that any user can follow therecord, while other records are private, for which appropriate securityclearance/permissions are a prerequisite to a user following the record.

Information updates can include various types of updates, which may ormay not be linked with a particular record. For example, informationupdates can be social media messages submitted by a user or canotherwise be generated in response to user actions or in response toevents. Examples of social media messages include: posts, comments,indications of a user's personal preferences such as “likes” and“dislikes”, updates to a user's status, uploaded files, anduser-submitted hyperlinks to social network data or other network datasuch as various documents and/or web pages on the Internet. Posts caninclude alpha-numeric or other character-based user inputs such aswords, phrases, statements, questions, emotional expressions, and/orsymbols. Comments generally refer to responses to posts or to otherinformation updates, such as words, phrases, statements, answers,questions, and reactionary emotional expressions and/or symbols.Multimedia data can be included in, linked with, or attached to a postor comment. For example, a post can include textual statements incombination with a JPEG image or animated image. A like or dislike canbe submitted in response to a particular post or comment. Examples ofuploaded files include presentations, documents, multimedia files, andthe like.

Users can follow a record by subscribing to the record, as mentionedabove. Users can also follow other entities such as other types of dataobjects, other users, and groups of users. Feed tracked updatesregarding such entities are one type of information update that can bereceived and included in the user's news feed. Any number of users canfollow a particular entity and thus view information updates pertainingto that entity on the users' respective news feeds. In some socialnetworks, users may follow each other by establishing connections witheach other, sometimes referred to as “friending” one another. Byestablishing such a connection, one user may be able to see informationgenerated by, generated about, or otherwise associated with anotheruser. For instance, a first user may be able to see information postedby a second user to the second user's personal social network page. Oneimplementation of such a personal social network page is a user'sprofile page, for example, in the form of a web page representing theuser's profile. In one example, when the first user is following thesecond user, the first user's news feed can receive a post from thesecond user submitted to the second user's profile feed. A user'sprofile feed is also referred to herein as the user's “wall,” which isone example of a social network feed displayed on the user's profilepage.

In some implementations, a social network feed may be specific to agroup of users of a social networking system. For instance, a group ofusers may publish a news feed. Members of the group may view and post tothis group feed in accordance with a permissions configuration for thefeed and the group. Information updates in a group context can alsoinclude changes to group status information.

In some implementations, when data such as posts or comments input fromone or more users are submitted to a social network feed for aparticular user, group, object, or other construct within a socialnetworking system, an email notification or other type of networkcommunication may be transmitted to all users following the user, group,or object in addition to the inclusion of the data as a feed item in oneor more feeds, such as a user's profile feed, a news feed, or a recordfeed. In some social networking systems, the occurrence of such anotification is limited to the first instance of a published input,which may form part of a larger conversation. For instance, anotification may be transmitted for an initial post, but not forcomments on the post. In some other implementations, a separatenotification is transmitted for each such information update.

The term “multi-tenant database system” generally refers to thosesystems in which various elements of hardware and/or software of adatabase system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, agiven application server may simultaneously process requests for a greatnumber of customers, and a given database table may store rows of datasuch as feed items for a potentially much greater number of customers.

An example of a “user profile” or “user's profile” is a database objector set of objects configured to store and maintain data about a givenuser of a social networking system and/or database system. The data caninclude general information, such as name, title, phone number, a photo,a biographical summary, and a status, e.g., text describing what theuser is currently doing. As mentioned herein, the data can includesocial media messages created by other users. Where there are multipletenants, a user is typically associated with a particular tenant. Forexample, a user could be a salesperson of a company, which is a tenantof the database system that provides a database service.

The term “record” generally refers to a data entity having fields withvalues and stored in database system. An example of a record is aninstance of a data object created by a user of the database service, forexample, in the form of a CRM record about a particular (actual orpotential) business relationship or project. The record can have a datastructure defined by the database service (a standard object) or definedby a user (custom object). For example, a record can be for a businesspartner or potential business partner (e.g., a client, vendor,distributor, etc.) of the user, and can include information describingan entire company, subsidiaries, or contacts at the company. As anotherexample, a record can be a project that the user is working on, such asan opportunity (e.g., a possible sale) with an existing partner, or aproject that the user is trying to get. In one implementation of amulti-tenant database system, each record for the tenants has a uniqueidentifier stored in a common table. A record has data fields that aredefined by the structure of the object (e.g., fields of certain datatypes and purposes). A record can also have custom fields defined by auser. A field can be another record or include links thereto, therebyproviding a parent-child relationship between the records.

The terms “social network feed” and “feed” are used interchangeablyherein and generally refer to a combination (e.g., a list) of feed itemsor entries with various types of information and data. Such feed itemscan be stored and maintained in one or more database tables, e.g., asrows in the table(s), that can be accessed to retrieve relevantinformation to be presented as part of a displayed feed. The term “feeditem” (or feed element) generally refers to an item of information,which can be presented in the feed such as a post submitted by a user.Feed items of information about a user can be presented in a user'sprofile feed of the database, while feed items of information about arecord can be presented in a record feed in the database, by way ofexample. A profile feed and a record feed are examples of differenttypes of social network feeds. A second user following a first user anda record can receive the feed items associated with the first user andthe record for display in the second user's news feed, which is anothertype of social network feed. In some implementations, the feed itemsfrom any number of followed users and records can be combined into asingle social network feed of a particular user.

As examples, a feed item can be a social media message, such as auser-generated post of text data, and a feed tracked update to a recordor profile, such as a change to a field of the record. Feed trackedupdates are described in greater detail herein. A feed can be acombination of social media messages and feed tracked updates. Socialmedia messages include text created by a user, and may include otherdata as well. Examples of social media messages include posts, userstatus updates, and comments. Social media messages can be created for auser's profile or for a record. Posts can be created by various users,potentially any user, although some restrictions can be applied. As anexample, posts can be made to a wall section of a user's profile page(which can include a number of recent posts) or a section of a recordthat includes multiple posts. The posts can be organized inchronological order when displayed in a GUI, for instance, on the user'sprofile page, as part of the user's profile feed. In contrast to a post,a user status update changes a status of a user and can be made by thatuser or an administrator. A record can also have a status, the update ofwhich can be provided by an owner of the record or other users havingsuitable write access permissions to the record. The owner can be asingle user, multiple users, or a group.

In some implementations, a comment can be made on any feed item. In someimplementations, comments are organized as a list explicitly tied to aparticular feed tracked update, post, or status update. In someimplementations, comments may not be listed in the first layer (in ahierarchal sense) of feed items, but listed as a second layer branchingfrom a particular first layer feed item.

A “feed tracked update,” also referred to herein as a “feed update,” isone type of information update and generally refers to data representingan event. A feed tracked update can include text generated by thedatabase system in response to the event, to be provided as one or morefeed items for possible inclusion in one or more feeds. In oneimplementation, the data can initially be stored, and then the databasesystem can later use the data to create text for describing the event.Both the data and/or the text can be a feed tracked update, as usedherein. In various implementations, an event can be an update of arecord and/or can be triggered by a specific action by a user. Whichactions trigger an event can be configurable. Which events have feedtracked updates created and which feed updates are sent to which userscan also be configurable. Social media messages and other types of feedupdates can be stored as a field or child object of the record. Forexample, the feed can be stored as a child object of the record.

A “group” is generally a collection of users. In some implementations,the group may be defined as users with a same or similar attribute, orby membership. In some implementations, a “group feed”, also referred toherein as a “group news feed”, includes one or more feed items about anyuser in the group. In some implementations, the group feed also includesinformation updates and other feed items that are about the group as awhole, the group's purpose, the group's description, and group recordsand other objects stored in association with the group. Threads ofinformation updates including group record updates and social mediamessages, such as posts, comments, likes, etc., can define groupconversations and change over time.

An “entity feed” or “record feed” generally refers to a feed of feeditems about a particular record in the database. Such feed items caninclude feed tracked updates about changes to the record and posts madeby users about the record. An entity feed can be composed of any type offeed item. Such a feed can be displayed on a page such as a web pageassociated with the record, e.g., a home page of the record. As usedherein, a “profile feed” or “user's profile feed” generally refers to afeed of feed items about a particular user. In one example, the feeditems for a profile feed include posts and comments that other usersmake about or send to the particular user, and status updates made bythe particular user. Such a profile feed can be displayed on a pageassociated with the particular user. In another example, feed items in aprofile feed could include posts made by the particular user and feedtracked updates initiated based on actions of the particular user.

While some of the disclosed implementations may be described withreference to a system having an application server providing a front endfor an on-demand database service capable of supporting multipletenants, the disclosed implementations are not limited to multi-tenantdatabases nor deployment on application servers. Some implementationsmay be practiced using various database architectures such as ORACLE®,DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope of theimplementations claimed.

It should be understood that some of the disclosed implementations canbe embodied in the form of control logic using hardware and/or computersoftware in a modular or integrated manner. Other ways and/or methodsare possible using hardware and a combination of hardware and software.

Any of the disclosed implementations may be embodied in various types ofhardware, software, firmware, and combinations thereof. For example,some techniques disclosed herein may be implemented, at least in part,by computer-readable media that include program instructions, stateinformation, etc., for performing various services and operationsdescribed herein. Examples of program instructions include both machinecode, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher-levelcode that may be executed by a computing device such as a server orother data processing apparatus using an interpreter. Examples ofcomputer-readable media include, but are not limited to: magnetic mediasuch as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media suchas flash memory, compact disk (CD) or digital versatile disk (DVD);magneto-optical media; and hardware devices specially configured tostore program instructions, such as read-only memory (“ROM”) devices andrandom access memory (“RAM”) devices. A computer-readable medium may beany combination of such storage devices.

Any of the operations and techniques described in this application maybe implemented as software code to be executed by a processor using anysuitable computer language such as, for example, Java, C++ or Perlusing, for example, object-oriented techniques. The software code may bestored as a series of instructions or commands on a computer-readablemedium. Computer-readable media encoded with the software/program codemay be packaged with a compatible device or provided separately fromother devices (e.g., via Internet download). Any such computer-readablemedium may reside on or within a single computing device or an entirecomputer system, and may be among other computer-readable media within asystem or network. A computer system or computing device may include amonitor, printer, or other suitable display for providing any of theresults mentioned herein to a user.

While various implementations have been described herein, it should beunderstood that they have been presented by way of example only, and notlimitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present applicationshould not be limited by any of the implementations described herein,but should be defined only in accordance with the following andlater-submitted claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: A database system forpresenting restricted component attributes in a server-hosted webapplication builder, the database system configurable to cause:maintaining a multi-tenant database associated with a plurality ofusers, the multi-tenant database identifying a plurality of webapplications and web application components, the web applicationcomponents each comprising one or more component attributes and beingconfigured to be reusable within the web application builder; preparing,for display on a client device, a user interface for the web applicationbuilder, the user interface comprising a page layout of a webapplication from the plurality of web applications, the web applicationcomprising one or more of the plurality of web application components,the preparing comprising processing one or more decorator rules forrendering the one or more web application components, the preparingfurther comprising processing one or more decorator override rulesassociated with a subset of the one or more attributes of the one ormore web application components; causing, for display on the clientdevice, the prepared user interface for the web application builder;processing a user request to access one or more attributes of the one ormore web application components; presenting, in response to the userrequest and in the user interface, the one or more attributes fordisplay, with the decorator override rules applied to the subset of theone or more attributes.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein presenting theone or more attributes for display comprises presenting one or moredefault values for the subset of the one or more attributes based on thedecorator override rules.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein presentingthe one or more attributes comprises restricting the subset of the oneor more attributes from being modifiable on the client device based onthe decorator override rules.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein the oneor more decorator rules relate to methods of presenting the one or moreweb application components in one or more component wrappers within thepage layout of the web application.
 5. The system of claim 1, whereinthe one or more decorator rules provide one or more additionalattributes for the one or more web application components.
 6. The systemof claim 1, wherein the one or more decorator override rules modify atleast the one or more decorator rules.
 7. The system of claim 1, whereinthe one or more decorator override rules modify a subset of the one ormore attributes of the one or more web application components.
 8. Thesystem of claim 1, the database system further configurable to cause:wrapping the one or more web application components in one or morecomponent wrappers, the one or more component wrappers each beingassociated with the one or more decorator rules.
 9. The system of claim1, wherein the one or more decorator override rules are configured byone or more developers associated with the subset of the one or more webapplication components.
 10. A method comprising: maintaining amulti-tenant database associated with a plurality of users, themulti-tenant database identifying a plurality of web applications andweb application components, the web application components eachcomprising one or more component attributes and being configured to bereusable within a web application builder; preparing, for display on aclient device, a user interface for the web application builder, theuser interface comprising a page layout of a web application from theplurality of web applications, the web application comprising one ormore of the plurality of web application components, the preparingcomprising processing one or more decorator rules for rendering the oneor more web application components, the preparing further comprisingprocessing one or more decorator override rules associated with a subsetof the one or more attributes of the one or more web applicationcomponents; causing, for display on the client device, the prepared userinterface for the web application builder; processing a user request toaccess one or more attributes of the one or more web applicationcomponents; presenting, in response to the user request and in the userinterface, the one or more attributes for display, with the decoratoroverride rules applied to the subset of the one or more attributes. 11.The method of claim 10, wherein presenting the one or more attributesfor display comprises presenting one or more default values for thesubset of the one or more attributes based on the decorator overriderules.
 12. The method of claim 10, wherein presenting the one or moreattributes comprises restricting the subset of the one or moreattributes from being modifiable on the client device based on thedecorator override rules.
 13. The method of claim 10, wherein the one ormore decorator rules provide one or more additional attributes for theone or more web application components.
 14. The method of claim 10,wherein the one or more decorator override rules modify a subset of theone or more attributes of the one or more web application components.15. The method of claim 10, further comprising: wrapping the one or moreweb application components in one or more component wrappers, the one ormore component wrappers each being associated with the one or moredecorator rules.
 16. A computer program product comprisingcomputer-readable program code capable of being executed by one or moreprocessors when retrieved from a non-transitory computer-readablemedium, the program code comprising instructions configurable to cause:maintaining a multi-tenant database associated with a plurality ofusers, the multi-tenant database identifying a plurality of webapplications and web application components, the web applicationcomponents each comprising one or more component attributes and beingconfigured to be reusable within a web application builder; preparing,for display on a client device, a user interface for the web applicationbuilder, the user interface comprising a page layout of a webapplication from the plurality of web applications, the web applicationcomprising one or more of the plurality of web application components,the preparing comprising processing one or more decorator rules forrendering the one or more web application components, the preparingfurther comprising processing one or more decorator override rulesassociated with a subset of the one or more attributes of the one ormore web application components; causing, for display on the clientdevice, the prepared user interface for the web application builder;processing a user request to access one or more attributes of the one ormore web application components; presenting, in response to the userrequest and in the user interface, the one or more attributes fordisplay, with the decorator override rules applied to the subset of theone or more attributes.
 17. The computer program product of claim 16,wherein presenting the one or more attributes for display comprisespresenting one or more default values for the subset of the one or moreattributes based on the decorator override rules.
 18. The computerprogram product of claim 16, wherein presenting the one or moreattributes comprises restricting the subset of the one or moreattributes from being modifiable on the client device based on thedecorator override rules.
 19. The computer program product of claim 16,wherein the one or more decorator rules provide one or more additionalattributes for the one or more web application components.
 20. Thecomputer program product of claim 16, wherein the one or more decoratoroverride rules modify a subset of the one or more attributes of the oneor more web application components.